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Macalester Faculty with African Studies Interests
David Blaney, Professor of Political Science
His areas of research and teaching are mostly based on African Francophone Literature and Genocide Studies, especially Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda. He is particularly interested in the growing body of African Francophone literary texts and other artistic works in dialogue with other disciplines. His work on Genocide Studies focuses on testimony and explores both fictional and non-fictional narratives. Educated in various disciplines such as African Linguistics, philosophy, and Social Ethics, some of his current projects explore how African responses to genocide and mass violence as well the myth of technology imply a reconstruction or a relocation of social sciences and humanities. Karegeye has published several works including two edited books, with articles from Todorov and major African writers, numerous chapters in books and more than 30 articles published in international journals. His recent article “Rwanda. Littérature post-génocide, écritures itinérantes: témoignage ou engagement?” has been published this Fall by the International Journal of Semiotics “Protée”. Another important element of his academic life has been his involvement, as director, with the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center (IGSC, www.igscrwanda.net), an international scholarly association composed of 35 scholars from European, North American and African universities and academic institutions. Its mission is to encourage the study of genocide through rigorous cross-disciplinary analyses, to organize and host conferences, colloquia and symposia, study Abroad groups and to promote affiliations and collaboration with academic institutions and professional associations, domestically and internationally. Karegeye has a collection of 5000 African songs available. E-mail: jkaregey@macalester.edu
My work contributes to literatures in political sociology, economic sociology, and the sociology of law by examining patterns of uniformity and diversity in globalized institutions. As a comparative sociologist, I am interested in how social settings are created and institutionalized in particular locations and how this process impacts subsequent patterns of social action and relations between individuals and groups. To this end, I have studied the formation and operation of new stock exchanges in Ghana, Fiji, and Iceland. A second, collaborative project examines political contention and policy formation about indigenous rights, with a particular focus on economic affirmative action. I have completed research for this project at the United Nations Office in Geneva and in Fiji, while my primary collaborator has completed research in Tanzania. E-mail: larsone@macalester.edu
Sowah Mensah is an ethnomusicologist, composer, and "Master Drummer" from Ghana in West Africa. He is a music professor at Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, where he also directs each African Music Ensemble. Sowah has taught music in both Ghana and Nigeria and played with the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra. He is also the Director of Sankofa, a Ghanaian Folklore and Dance Ensemble in the Twin Cities. Both Sowah and the African Music Ensemble have their own web page where you may find more information. E-mail: mensah@macalester.edu
Monson's early research focus was on agricultural and environmental history of southern Tanzania, and she has also worked on anti-colonial warfare in German East Africa. In the late 1990s Jamie began a new research project on the history of the TAZARA railway, built with Chinese development aid in Tanzania and Zambia in the 1960s and 1970s. Her book, "Africa's Freedom Railway," was just published by Indiana University Press this spring. For the last two years Jamie has been studying the history of China-Africa relations (and learning Chinese), and she just returned from 14 months of research in China. Her new project is a study of technology transfer in the history of Chinese development assistance to Africa. A second project that she has also just begun uses records of visits made by African women's delegations to China during the Cultural Revolution to examine gendered aspects of civil diplomacy. In addition to these research interests, she also teaches courses and workshops on the ethics of civic engagement, most recently this summer in Myanmar (Burma). E-mail: jmonson1@macalester.edu
David Moore counts himself as an "Afro-planetarist" -- that is, a scholar of the global literary/cultural dimensions and interconnections of the African and diasporic worlds. He has, for example, published on Alex Haley's historical/invented African ancestry, on Langston Hughes and South African writers, on Martin Bernal's "Black Athena" theses, white and black American students in Ghana, and on more traditionally African subjects such as the fiction of Ousmane Sembene. He reviews and reads regularly for Research in African Literatures and the African Studies Review, and has published Africanist materials there as well as in Transition, Diaspora, Callaloo, Frontiers, and elsewhere. Interesting Africanist note: oftentimes people who know David only by his writing mistake him for an Ibo, thanks to the "Chi" starting middle name. Great (and humorous) shock ensues upon face-to-face meeting. Chioni is the name of David's Italian grandfather. E-mail: mooredc@macalester.edu
I am an environment and development geographer with research and work experience in West and Southern Africa. My research interests include: political ecology, tropical agriculture, environment and development policy, livelihood security and Africa. I also was employed for ten years in the field of international development as a project manager and policy analyst for organizations such as Save the Children (UK), The World Bank Environment Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Peace Corps. I have worked and/or conducted fieldwork in Mali, Niger, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lesotho and South Africa. I have authored over 40 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. My books include: Hanging by a Thread: Cotton, Globalization and Poverty in Africa (Ohio University Press, 2008); The Introductory Reader in Human Geography: Contemporary Debates and Classic Writings (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007); three editions of Taking Sides: Clashing Views on African Issues (McGraw-Hill, 2004, 2006 & 2008); and African Environment and Development: Rhetoric, Programs, Realities (Ashgate, 2004). I am the editor of the journal African Geographical Review. E-mail: moseley@macalester.edu
My broad Africa research interests are in the areas of the political economy and social theory of development. With particular attention to the concept of the state and historical examination of the Somali experience, I have co/ written/edited five books and about thirty articles. The most recent (2002) is a co-edited volume, " The African State: Reconsiderations," includes nine case studies ( Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Libya, South Africa, Ghana, Sudan, and Somalia). Currently, I am in the midst of a collaborative book with Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar (University of Minnesota) on leadership and the state in Somalia. Finally, I am a founding member and editor-in-chief of BILDHAAN: An International Journal Of Somali Studies. E-mail: samatar@macalester.edu
My research engages current methodological and theoretical debates about the anthropological unit of analysis, about concepts of home, and about the relationship between culture and territory. I began this inquiry as an undergraduate by examining the experiences of Africans studying in the former Soviet Union. I later looked at these questions in more depth in post-apartheid Namibia where I examined the influence of those who had been in exile during the war on the reconstruction of post-apartheid Namibian society. My current research focuses on Sudanese refugees in the United States. I have edited (with E. Gozdziak) two volumes on forced migration (Oxford University Press and the American Anthropological Association). I have authored several articles and book chapters about African refugees in the United States and their maintenance of ties to Africa. Currently under review is a paper I co-authored with U of MN Public Policy Professor Kathy Fennelly on Africans in rural MN. E-mail: shandy@macalester.edu
My connection to African Studies is mostly through teaching courses in Francophone African literature and cinema since my first year at Macalester (courses on Senegal/Mali, Senegal/Mali/Haiti, and West African cinema in a first-year course on Culture and identity). I have also led several workshops for the local francophone community (Allicance Française) and the local chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French on Senegal/Mali, Haiti, and North Africa. My research interests focus partly on Algerian and Haitian literature and culture around the concept of systemic violence. I have published several articles on Haitian literature, written in Haiti, and on Haitian literature from the diaspora in Quebec and Acadia. I am currently working on a research project about the Haitian diaspora in Senegal. My research interests regarding Sub-Sahara Africa include the general critical questioning of the concept of "francophonie", and a more general interest around issues of literacy, canon, representations of violence and culture. I am working on developing courses on francophone African literature and cinema. E-mail: vitiello@macalester.edu |
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African Studies Program · Macalester College · 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105 USA · 651-696-6332 |